Works of Grant Allen

by Grant Allen

  Basil never mentioned his good luck in getting that card to his fellow-lodger. True, it was hard for him to keep silence altogether as to so important an invitation, which filled his horizon and occupied the larger part of his consciousness during those tedious weeks and days of waiting; but he nathless so endured for the sake of the greater triumph he felt it would be to remark casually next morning at breakfast, ‘I was presented last night at Lady Simpson’s to the Duchess of Powysland — a very agreeable Yankee girl, so lively and unaffected.’ For Basil had quite made up his mind beforehand to board the Duchess. He was aiming now at nothing less than the habitual entrée of Powysland House. A Duke must be compelled to acknowledge old scores. Basil meant to make the best of those three tenners and that chance acquaintance of his with Bertie Montgomery.

  So he kept his own counsel, as though dukes and he were as thick as thieves — he might, indeed, have been hail fellow well met with half the strawberry-leaves in the British peerage for all he said himself to the contrary.

  At last that long-watched-for 12th arrived, and Basil Maclaine, in his best new evening suit, turned back with satin at the flap, and an orchid in his button-hole, drove solemnly off in his own hired brougham to Lady Simpson’s party. For on such an occasion as this Basil thought it a duty he owed his hostess to let it ‘run to a brougham,’ in anticipation of the honour of meeting a Duchess.

  It was a very swell affair — red cloth in the street and canopy over the pavement. All the smartest people in the town were there, so that Basil, gazing round on fair women and brave men, felt himself truly in his ideal element. There could be no denying this was the Best Society — even Douglas Harrison himself must have admitted its Bestness. Baronets hustled against bishops in the hall, and you might have ticked a good quarter of the guests off in Burke or Debrett, while most of the residuum, though not, of course, quite so truly distinguished, had still that minor sort of social importance acquired in such vulgar work-a-day pursuits as medicine, law, art, literature, and science. Basil’s bosom swelled with just pride and with a solitaire shirt-front as he looked around him, beaming, and realized the full glory of his present surroundings. He had never before moved in so exalted a company.

  Podgy little Lady Simpson, fat, fair, and fifty, smiling right and left, stood in the midst of all, to receive her guests with a gracious inclination of what stumpy neck nature had bestowed upon her. Basil grasped the plump, small hand extended to welcome him to the bosom of society, and adjusting the eyeglass he had lately started to give himself importance, fell back, somewhat awed, into the second line that ranged round the drawing-room.

  ‘Oh, Mr. Maclaine, that’s you,’ Sabine Venables cried, holding out her hand to him cordially, as he passed her way through the crush, observant right and left (among so much magnificence) of somebody to talk to. ‘Do come here and point me out the Duchess when she arrives. I’m just longing to see her. Everybody says she’s such a magnificent woman, you know, and so deliciously Yankee.’

  ‘She hasn’t come yet, I fancy,’ Basil answered, glancing around the room through his eyeglass with a knowing air of universal acquaintance; for he wouldn’t for worlds have admitted to his neighbour he didn’t know even the very brand-newest of British duchesses by sight. ‘I don’t see her about anywhere.’

  ‘Oh no, she hasn’t come,’ Sabine replied, looking him through and through with those keen black eyes of hers. ‘But she’s expected every minute. All the world wants to see her. They say she’s just charming. She’s the sensation of the season.’

  ‘And how’s the infant?’ Basil asked, not because he really desired to know, but merely to keep the conversation going, ‘Flourishing, as usual?’ He’d forgotten the name of that disconcerting boy, so he thought it wiser to inquire after him by a safe generalization as ‘the infant.’

  A faint shade passed over Sabine’s face as she answered dubiously:

  ‘Well, no; not quite the thing, somehow. His throat seems bad, and he’s a little bit feverish. I oughtn’t to have come out and left him at all to-night, that’s the truth’ (Basil shaped his mouth as she spoke to a conventionally sympathizing circle), ‘for papa’s away — gone to Paris for a week about what they call a syndicate, I fancy — or is it a contango? — and Arthur’s far from well. I ought to have stopped at home with him. I promised poor Woodbine I’d be a mother to him, you know, and I’ve kept my word to her. But I couldn’t resist the temptation just this once to come out, in spite of his being below par, to see the Duchess. Everybody’s seen the Duchess, and everybody raves about her; and one doesn’t like to be behind the times, of course, does one?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Basil responded, with a somewhat crestfallen air; for he didn’t like to be told everybody had already been admitted to a privilege which he himself had been ranking so high in his own mind for the last fortnight. He had fancied he was among the very first to be permitted a glimpse of this new star from the West, and it was humiliating to hear from a lady’s lips that all the world beside had long since sighted it.

  Before he had time to venture on any comment, however, the door opened again, and, amid a lull of voices, the footman announced, ‘The Dook and Duchess of Powysland.’

  Everybody turned to stare instinctively at the American beauty. There was a hush on all sides. Even the Dean of Dorchester paused in his bland discourse to Miss Lily Watson, and old General Black cut short his famous story of how Hobson’s Horse routed the sepoys in the bungalow at Moozuffer-nugger. The whole company was agog to see her grace enter.

  The newcomer swept into the room every inch a Duchess. She was tall and dark and exquisitely dressed, as is the common wont of the Transatlantic heiress; and for the first second or two Basil could only note that she was handsomer and more queenly-looking than he had at all expected. Nouveaux riches always despise one another for their sad lack of family antecedents; and Basil, inbred with all the traditions of the Hagley Road, Edgbaston, had rather expected to despise Miss Amberley, of Madison Square, New York, and of the Amberley motor, as not quite coming up, however high-toned Colonel Quackenboss might find her, to the dignity of the society in which he himself was accustomed to mix. But one glance at the new Duchess dispelled all his doubts or fears on that score. In spite of her diamonds and her magnificent dress, he could see in a second she was a Born Lady.

  Just at first, that was all. The manner and bearing of the great American beauty took his breath away at one glimpse, and left him only a general sense of hushed surprise and awe at so much grace and graciousness. But she swept across the room towards podgy little Lady Simpson, through the alley formed spontaneously by the other guests, with a quiet dignity which somehow seemed to Basil’s eye extremely familiar. Surely, surely, he had seen that tall, lithe figure and that well-poised head somewhere else before! Was it at Nice — or Vichy — or Geneva — or the Netliberg? Then, with a flash, the whole incredible truth burst wildly across his bewildered brain. The great American heiress — the new Duchess of Powysland — was — incredible! — impossible! — none other than Linda!

  It took but three seconds for these varying ideas to pass in rapid order through Basil Maclaine’s mind; but what a world of wonderment broke over him all at once as he stood there with a reeling brain, and actually realized it! There could be no doubt at all about the bare fact. Altered as she was, by dress and decoration, by three or four years of interval, and the lasting traces of a great sorrow, the American heiress was Linda Figgins still — his old rejected flame of the Clandon Street lodging-house. What it could all mean, his puzzled head could hardly divine. The enigma was too deep for him. So many questions surged up in his mind all at once, as he stood at gaze and stared at her. Had Powysland been palming off some strange lie upon the world? Had he married the girl for her beauty and her figure alone, and then tried to impose her on innocent society as the sister of the great millionaire electrician? Was the Amberley story all a gay and light-hearted fiction, invented to cover a common mésalliance? Had a D
uke and a fortune-hunter succumbed at last to the mere personal charms which Basil Maclaine, a simple Government servant, of Brummagem antecedents, had been strong enough to resist, in spite of the siren?

  But no! Corroborative evidence was there to refute him. The diamonds alone told another tale. Linda must be rich, however or whenever she came by her money. Powysland had neither cash nor credit of his own to deck out his new-married wife in such a truly Transatlantic blaze of splendour. Whether Linda had picked up a new name and a new brother in America he knew not. But one thing at least he knew to a certainty. This girl was Linda, his old lodging-house attendant, who had waited on him in her neat apron a score of times in Clandon Street, who had changed the plates, and washed up the dishes, and lighted the fires, and made beds with the stipendiary. This girl was Linda, dressed up in all the latest style of art to represent a complete Duchess.

  Behold, we know not anything — not even the knowing ones. In a moment they had vanished as if by magic into the limbo whence they came, all those shadowy forms — the Hoosier, who rode into St. Louis on a Mexican mustang; the lady who sang in the Bowery beer saloon; the log cabin on the banks of limitless Superior: nay, even the grand-daughter of Martin van Buren, who was connected with all the old Presidential families — while in their vacant place, there, bodily before his eyes, stood the transfigured form of Linda Figgins.

  And then, like all the rest of us, Basil thought about himself. How did this strange occurrence affect him personally? Would Linda recognise him? And, if so, how would she expect him to behave to her? What cue must he take? Would she stand aghast at suddenly finding herself face to face in that brilliant company with someone who knew her when she was only Miss Figgins? Or would she try to avoid him and pretend she didn’t remember him? Or would she brazen out the recognition, if he forced himself upon her notice, and ignore the past with true feminine effrontery? Which of all these courses would she instinctively adopt? Basil Maclaine was not a good judge of character; so he asked himself, quite needlessly, as the Duchess swept in, all these foolish questions.

  But the Duchess swept on, unseeing him, to Lady Simpson’s welcome.

  ‘A very pleasing subject!’ Mr. Constable Jones, R.A., observed in a patronizing murmur to his next-door neighbour. ‘Holds her neck splendidly.’

  ‘Yes, indeed, and carries on it at least £15,000 worth of rubies and diamonds!’ Mr. Levy Moss, of the Stock Exchange, replied, with gloating admiration.

  ‘Oh, how beautiful she is!’ Sabine Venables whispered, turning towards her companion with genuine delight at the newcomer’s graceful figure and queenly movement.

  ‘Well, yes. She is very beautiful, certainly,’ Basil answered in a maze, hardly knowing what to say next. ‘I’ve always thought so. I ... I’ve met her before. To tell you the truth, I ... I used to know her.’

  He spoke low, but at the vague sound of his voice — that well-known voice, heard above the recommencing buzz of conversation in the room which her entry had temporarily stopped — Linda turned her head and gazed in his direction. Her eyes met his. In a moment they lighted up with quiet recognition. Just at that instant she was going through the ceremony of official welcome. Podgy little Lady Simpson was bowing her best and making known the new Duchess to the particular shining lights of the assembled company. So Linda could do no more at the moment than just bend her head to him distantly and smile her remembrance. For some minutes Basil watched her as one favoured guest after another was brought up and presented. He could hardly believe his own eyes. It was all so wonderful. Linda the central focus of so much admiration, adulation, congratulation, deference! A curious misgiving of his own wisdom in the guidance of his life came over him as he looked. For once he mistrusted his own foresight. After all, had he been so wise in rejecting Linda?

  But then when he rejected her she wasn’t a Duchess.

  Presently came a lull in the current of presentations; and Basil, curious to see how Linda would comport herself under these altered conditions, strolled up with counterfeited indifference towards the brilliant group where the Duchess sat as centre, conversing alternately with a bishop and an ambassador, while Powysland, by her side, leant admiringly over her. So eager was he to reach his goal that he even hustled on his way the Most Exalted Order of the Star of India. But he had his reward. The Duke recognised him at once, with a careless nod and a friendly shake of the hand.

  ‘Hallo, Maclaine,’ he cried with that charming air of Christian forgiveness a man always adopts towards his unpaid creditors, ‘you here to-night! I hardly expected to see you. Come to meet my wife? Like me to introduce you to her?’

  But Linda, even as he spoke, half rising from her chair, held out her hand, and took Basil’s with a frank cordiality he had little expected. No trace of awkwardness or of mauvaise honte marred her manner as she answered quietly:

  ‘Oh, Mr. Maclaine and I need no introduction, thank you, Bertie. We’ve met before. We’re quite old friends. I knew him long ago, when I was last in London.’

  In spite of his surprise and his stammered greeting, that was the proudest moment of Basil Maclaine’s life. Only to think that in that crowded drawing-room, before half the best people in London society, a real live Duchess — even though it was only Linda Figgins in disguise — should rise from her seat of her own accord to shake his hand and publicly acknowledge him as an old acquaintance! It was glorious, glorious! Basil felt in heart his fortune was made. He had carved out for himself a niche, and he would take his proper place in it henceforth among the Best People.

  And yet, how strange he should owe it all to none other than Linda — the Linda he had rejected in her rooms in Clandon Street as obviously beneath his distinguished consideration!

  But the Duke drew himself up with a doubtfully pleased expression of face, and ejaculated, half audibly, under his moustache:

  ‘The deuce you did, Linda!’

  It began to strike him for the first time as an awkward possibility that his rich American wife might, perhaps, possess too many friends of the sort among the circle of her old acquaintances in London.

  CHAPTER XXII.

  WHY DID SHE DO IT?

  It was a minute or two before Basil had sufficiently recovered from the first shock of surprise to gather together his scattered wits and enter into intelligible conversation with Linda. Even then he hardly knew where to begin or what to say, so little could he understand the revolution in events that had brought her there like a queen in all her glory that evening. Of course, he was burning to know what it all meant; but among that crowd of bystanders, eagerly listening to pick up the conversational crumbs that fell from the ducal table, he could never ask her the questions that rose most naturally to his lips: ‘How do you come to be so rich? and why did you call yourself Amberley’s sister?’ So he temporized by taking refuge in the commonest formulas of society, and asking her decorously non-committing questions with cautious carefulness.

  For naturally Basil, being what he was, didn’t want now to destroy for himself the honour and glory of having known a full-fledged Duchess intimately before her marriage by letting all the rest of the world find out the damaging fact that he had known her only as a common-lodging-house keeper in a street in Bloomsbury.

  So he satisfied his soul by asking the very safe question:

  ‘And your brother? How is he now? You’ve left him in America?’

  He wouldn’t even risk the chance of calling him Cecil, far less Mr. Figgins. He preferred the ambiguous compromise of ‘your brother.’

  Linda smiled such a frank, easy smile, however, that Basil positively envied her.

  ‘Oh yes,’ she answered, as simply as in the old days in the drawing-rooms at Clandon Street, ‘Cecil’s very well. I never knew him better. He works awfully hard, but he says hard work never killed anybody; and it seems to suit him. He’s engaged just now in placing his motor among several big mining districts in Nevada and Arizona. He expects great things from it in the way of ore-crushing.’ />
  ‘Well, if you know my brother-in-law, Maclaine,’ the Duke put in with a good-humoured smile, as if on purpose to cover Basil’s ill-concealed surprise and embarrassment, ‘you know what a perfect enthusiast he is for everything where electricity’s concerned. As somebody once said about Gladstone, he’s a glutton for work. There’s no getting Amberley away when once he’s in his laboratory. Why, he was engaged on the latest improvements to his crusher when I was in New York, night and day; and I really believe, if my wife hadn’t kept him well up to the mark, and insisted upon his coming, he wouldn’t even have turned out to see his sister married. But his sister took care of that — she crushed the crusher.’

  ‘Mr. Amberley was always wedded to his science,’ Basil replied, bewildered and with a swimming brain, but taking his cue obediently from Linda and her husband. After all, in any such matter as that, one can’t do better than follow the lead of the Best People. But why on earth Cecil Figgins, of Clandon Street, Bloomsbury, had developed all at once — hi, presto! and there you are! — into Amberley of New York, the millionaire inventor of the Amberley light and the Amberley motor, with a mansion of vast extent in Madison Square, he hadn’t, in his own soul, the very faintest conception.